Shakespeare gets the 2023 remix treatment from G8 students

Reporting by Ashton and Connie

Grade 8 students got to grips with intertextuality as they produced creative interpretations of Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. ​

An artwork from Danae using broken CDs to explore Macbeth's identity.

As part of a unit called Why Shakespeare? developed by Mr. Nick and Mr. Rui, students explored the play Macbeth. They discussed and analysed the written play and the movie, while additionally answering the question of whether or not international students in 2023 should be studying this kind of “classic” literature. Macbeth is a story about a brave warrior that receives information about his fate from witches. He essentially uses that information to form his own fate, causing chaos for himself, and others around him. Students were asked to produce an intertextual piece that conveys a deep understanding of the play, meaning an interconnection between 2 or more texts that are creatively interpreted. 

“My aim with this intertextual project was to give everyone the freedom to explore and any prompt from the play that intrigued them and to take it wherever they wanted to take it” said Mr Rui.
​“We should celebrate our individual interpretations and have the space, freedom and validation to explore them and express them. That's what education should be about in my view.” 

The G8 learners certainly made the most of this space and produced various remixes of the Macbeth story, such as: 

• drama pieces about the complex relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
• a board game focussing on the dangers of being overly ambitious
• comedy skits where Macbeth and Lady Macbeth visit psychologists
• Spotify playlists with different songs showing the emotional journeys of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
• art pieces exploring issues such as identity fragmentation, fate and loneliness... 

The variety of student products was a sight to behold and made for a compelling series of presentations. It turned out that most students were turned on to Shakespeare’s 400 year old story. 
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“We got to gain another, deeper level of understanding of Macbeth and Shakespeare's writing”, said one of the students, Laia. “It’s the stories that count.”

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